Joining the office of Industrial Facility requires certain qualities beyond a design education. We are always interested in people with informed backgrounds and a worldly view. Currently we have no staff vacancies. Internships are available generally for 3 months. Interns should ideally be in full-time education, with a school to return to. We do not financially support internships other than local travel expenses. Independent sponsorship should be sought. Please e-mail us your application (no more than 1MB) stating your preferred period to:

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Credits

This website was designed and built byStylo Design in collaboration with Industrial Facility.

All content in this website is for personal reference and not to be reproduced, copied, manipulated, projected, used or altered in any way, alone or with any other material, or by use of computer or other electronic means without permission.

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Industrial Facility was formed in 2002 to explore the junction between industrial design and the world around us. Our office designs objects of varying purpose in relation to their spatial, cultural and performative landscapes for international companies operating in international markets. Clients value our deeper contribution to their design and business thinking and often incorporate resultant project directions into their broader future. Areas of work include products, furniture, exhibitions, transportation and clothing. The office has emerged as one of the most progressive and creative design offices working in industrial design.

“Industrial Facility creates new identities for lost objects.” Wallpaper magazine, September 2008

Industrial Facility was formed by Sam Hecht and Kim Colin to investigate and contextualise objects so that their potential for progress is revealed. Our staff includes Japanese Designer Ippei Matsumoto, who joined the office soon after its formation and German Designer Philipp Von Lintel. Hecht and Colin have run teaching programs at the Royal College of Art. Hecht has been a Visiting Professor at HfG Karlsruhe and in 2009 he became a Royal Designer for Industry and nominated for the Prince Philip Prize. The office was given its fifth iF Hanover Gold Award in 2014 and won the Designs of the Year award for Furniture in 2011.

“Industrial Facility is on our side – the side of the end-user. And boy do we need them.”London Evening Standard, 2008

Working with Industrial Facility is straight forward. We work with international companies of all sizes in a wide ranging set of industries, from tableware & kitchen products to furniture and lighting, electronics and appliance design. Recently, we have also found ourselves tackling projects for interiors, public furniture, medical devices and exhibitions. All of our worldwide clients share a belief in making things better, which invariably helps to make life better too. To help to understand the structure of Industrial Facility and how we work, we have put together answers to ten common questions put to us.EnglishGermanKoreanJapanese

Joining the office of Industrial Facility requires certain qualities beyond a design education. We are always interested in people with informed backgrounds and a worldly view. Currently we have no staff vacancies. Internships are available generally for 3 months. Interns should ideally be in full-time education, with a school to return to. We do not financially support internships other than local travel expenses. Independent sponsorship should be sought. Please e-mail us your application (no more than 1MB) stating your preferred period to:

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An Alarrm is an effective analog alert watch that adopts the iconic alarm clock analogy as its starting point. When the alert is activated, instead of sound a small motor creates a vibration on the wrist, similar to a mobile phone. Its intelligence is in how simple it is to set and use – the alert is set simply by moving the alarm hand to the desired time and lifting the alert button. This interface was also borrowed from the alarm clock, to avoid ‘layers’ of settings that would have otherwise created complexity that’s normally found in alarm watches.

Bottle is a unisex, analogue watch with raised nodules around its glass perimeter, similar to those found on the bottom of a glass beverage bottle. We noticed that there are often exactly sixty of these nodules found on a typical beer bottle where the function is to avoid suction between the bottle and a table surface. This observation makes a useful correlation to the units of timekeeping and replicating these nodules creates a strikingly irridescent appearance when light hits its face at different angles.

It was designed for Nava, an Italian accessories company, in colours that follow typical glass bottles - brown ale, green wine, clear spirt and blue water.

A watch in its most simplest description is something that ‘measures’ time. The Circumference Watch followed this description - a wristwatch as an accurate measuring device, similar to a ruler. For the numbers on the face of the watch, the same number typeface was adopted as used on the technical rulers manufactured by the Japanese company Shinwa. Since the watch was to be made by Seiko, Shinwa allowed the use of their typeface. The design also had an interesting sense of depth - produced through the interplay of three elements: the numbers printed on the back side of the glass, the shadows that were projected upon the face, and the hands of the watch. In order to give the glass cover a greater sense of materiality, green glass was chosen. All of these ideas gelled together to form a very simple but also magical design.

Even though the digital world has made analogue alarm clocks appear historical, people still are attracted to them for their loudness and simple interface. Bell was designed to help alarm clocks take up a more desireable position, for people who struggle with the layers of information required to set digital clocks. The design moved the bell component to form part of the clock’s body, helping to save components, simplifying the appearance, and creating a much louder ring within a small footprint. Bell features a snooze control, a molded numeral display that avoids the necessity for printing, and LED illumination. It is louder than a mobile phone, a desk clock or a watch. Its loudness is also reflected in the choice of colours: Fire Bell Red, Bicycle Bell Chrome, and Doorbell Black.

The battery door is easily pulled off for replacement, as well as serving as a stand for greater stability when the alarm is ringing. When the alarm is activated, the LED light also turns on, to help to see its display on dark winter mornings.

Industrial Facility examined the travel alarm clock - a product that receives little attention yet continues to be popular among older generations. The design was informed not by shape but by interface. The ambition was to create a digital alarm clock with such simplicity of use that it would render a manual unnecessary. By involving two digital displays - one for time, the other for alarm - that are always visible, adjusting the display becomes intuitive. The reverse of the clock has both, a lock button for travelling (to stop the display inadvertently changing) and a battery compartment that uses no screws. Other functions include display illumination and an alarm/snooze button that also incorporates the speaker.

Every detail, from the interface, to the size and material were considered and resulted in a clarity rarely seen in these types of products.

"It's not often you get the chance to develop a product from scratch. It came about from the plain frustration of trying to set a digital alarm clock for travelling. The answer came during a trip to Tokyo, where the hotel had a clock with two displays. This simple idea removed a lot of complexity in using it, even though it added more. However, adopting this simple idea proved hard to achieve for mass production at an affordable scale, because it required a new microchip along with the costs of programming. The overwhelming advantages proved irresistible to us and IDEA. The proportions were also based on half the size of a passport. We all feel it epitomises one of the primary roles of design - making things better from inside out."